An obelisk is a stone rectangular pillar with a tapered top forming a pyramidion, set on a base, erected to commemorate an individual or event and honor the gods. The ancient Egyptians created the form at some point in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-c. 2613 BCE) following their work in mud brick mastaba tombs and prior to the construction of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (c. 2670 BCE). It is thought that the earliest obelisks served as a kind of training for working in stone on monumental projects which was a necessary step toward pyramid building.
The name "obelisk" is Greek for "spit", as in a long pointed piece of wood generally used for cooking, because the Greek historian Herodotus was the first to write about them and so named them. The Egyptians called them tekhenu which means "to pierce" as in "to pierce the sky". The earliest obelisks no longer exist and are only known through later inscriptions but appear to have been only about ten feet (3 metres) tall. In time they would reach heights of over 100 feet (30 metres). Although many cultures around the world from the Assyrian to the Mesoamerican employed the obelisk form, only ancient Egypt worked in monolithic stone, almost always red granite. Each ancient Egyptian obelisk was carved from a single piece of stone which was then moved to its location and raised onto a base. While archaeologists and scholars understand how these monuments were carved and transported, no one knows how they were raised; modern day efforts to replicate the raising of an obelisk, using ancient Egyptian technology, have failed.
